February 27, 2010 - Day 4 A Day of Wat's

Brett and I spent Saturday touring the three most famous Wat's in Bangkok (Referred to as the holy trinity of Bangkok's early history)

Wat Pho (house of the Reclining Buddha)

The Reclining Buddha fills the entire building. Only a hallway around the edge if the figure remains for the people to walk around it. The soles of the feet of the Buddha are covered with mother-of-pearl depictions of the 108 different favorable lak-sa-na of a Buddha (characteristics of a Buddha). Although the core is brick covered with plaster the entire figure is finished in gold leaf!

Thailand is ornate to say the least and the Grand Palace grounds, which includes Wat Phra Kaew, is the most ornate of all. We hired a guide to take us around the grounds and tell us what we were seeing. She promptly supplied Brett with a 'proper' pair of pants - his jeans with the knees worn out did not pass muster. You'll recognized them - their dragon pants. Although it was in the 90's with about the same amount of humidity you will notice I have long pants and a sleeved shirt on. Shoulders and legs must be covered at Wat's.

Pictures of the Emerald Buddha were not allowed but the temple was full of golden buddha's surrounding the famous Emerald Buddha. It is really a single piece of carved jade not emerald and is housed so high up and behind so many other buddha statues that you can't really see the detail of the Buddha. He was wearing his multimillion dollar winter outfit. According to our guide he has three outfits, one for each season, which only royalty can handle. The Prince was coming the next day to change the emerald buddha's garb so we had come on the only day I would have been able to see the Palace grounds and the temple.

The Grand Palace is spectacular in size and splendor which is appropriate as it was the royal residence for many years. There are many more pictures of my time in Bangkok and of the different temples in my facebook 'Bangkok Feb 25-28' alblum.

Wat Arun was the oldest and most challenging of the wat's we visited. The 82 meter high prang (Khmer-style tower) is covered with mosaics made up of broken pieces of china! Back in the early 19th century, when the tower was built, ships from China that put into port here used tonnes of old, broken porcelain as ballast. They dumped the ballast when they filled their holds with merchandise. Using the multi-colored pieces the Thai's decorated almost every square inch of the Temple of Dawn.

The sound of temple bells will always remind me of Wat Arun. The wind off the river blew almost constantly and keep the bells tinkling. It added an extra fantasy quality to the temple grounds.

We climbed up the knee high steps to the balcony that goes around the tower and got to see Bangkok streaching out in all directions. It is a huge city! It was here, at Wat Arun, that I made my most useful purchase of my Thailand trip - a fan!